Trick or Treat
by Takada Saiko
Summary: Belated Halloween story. Jane isn't sure exactly when weird started to become her new normal, but she think it might have been when she stopped questioning Loki's impromptu visits.


A/N: This is what happens after far too much angst on Tumblr, gearing up for NaNo (in which I'm now in the middle of), and me being sick. Pointless Halloween Fluff with our two favorite brothers and Jane.

Note: Part of my series. While you wouldn't _have _to have read it to get it, I'd very much appreciate it :)

* * *

**Trick or Treat**

There were times that Jane couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. She'd had high hopes and dreams over the years, blossoming as she grew older and forming into something that people only truly understood as she moved up through her coursework and into the high levels of academics, where others clung to the same distant hopes of finding something that could change the world. While finding a new dimension that housed the beings that the Norse vikings had once called their gods had never been a specified note on her to-do list through the years, she couldn't say she regretted it. Even if it had somehow made it - in some distant, vague sort of fashion - to that list, well, she certainly wouldn't have expected to become romantically involved with one of them. Muchless a prince. Muchless Thor. No, with her track record of guys and the way they had met, she was pretty sure she was dreaming. Possibly in a coma, even for the dream to have lasted this long.

If it were a dream, it got weirder with each passing day. The thing was, the weirder it got, the more it seemed like the norm. Perhaps strange was her new normal. Just a few years ago the thought of doing even half of what she done, or seeing half of what she'd seen, seemed as realistic to her as the thought of actual teleportation. Or aliens. She had now seen both and those things were just two of many that had made strange the new normal.

She couldn't quite place when this had happened. She thought it might have been when going to Asgard was something she just did. It wasn't that it was not awe inspiring with its rainbow bridge and towering Gatekeeper. It wasn't as if the All-Father was not imposing and the All-Mother as kind as they came. The streets glittered and the seas sparkled. Even the abyss looked beautiful, though she knew better. No, when Jane really thought about it, she was sure that it had become normal when she no longer blinked when she came home to find her boyfriend's - could she really call an alien being from another world that had been worshiped by humans that came before her something as mundane as a boyfriend? Perhaps that should be added to the list of things as well - younger brother on her couch.

He always perched on the couch, though she wasn't sure why. He was a creature of habit, she'd discovered, and sometimes he did things just to cause people to wonder. That much she was sure of. Sometimes Loki simply liked to keep people guessing.

This had also become a new norm. Sometimes she found him sleeping, as if he'd scurried away from some meeting that he'd rather not attend and Earth had been the furthest reaches that he dared to go. There was one time that she had found her entire apartment scrubbed clean, everything somehow exactly where she would have put it, had she ever been inclined to clean. She had stood there and stared at him and he'd only shrugged, never offering an explanation and she never verballing seeking one. A couple visits ago, though, he'd discovered what he called her "funny little box." She'd sat back and laughed at him poke and prod at the box itself, the controller, and the wires that he said went everywhere. Her laughter had stopped when a bit of green mist had surrounded the Playstation and it had come apart into a hundred pieces, some small and intricate while others merely the shell. She'd screeched at him, forgetting in that moment just who he was and what he'd done, and hauled away and hit him as hard as she could. It wasn't as if she had never done it before, and it probably wouldn't be the last time, but damn he was sturdier than he looked. She forgot every time. This had brought a playful chuckle from the mischief god and he'd snapped it all back together and watched her make sure it still worked. She'd found him playing it like an expert on his next visit.

On this particular visit she found him curled into the furthest corner of the couch, facing the door. Or he would have been facing the door if his eyes had been open. Instead they were squeezed shut, not relaxed enough to be in sleep, with his brows knit and the funniest look on his face. He cracked one emerald eye open when she entered, but gave no further greeting as a sneeze escaped him, nearly sending him tumbling off the couch.

"I swear to you, Loki, if you get me sick with some weird Asgardian virus, there won't be a place in the universe that you can hide," Jane threatened idily.

He chuckled, the sound coming out as more of a harsh breath. "I would not have troubled you if I thought it would cause harm," he promised hoarsely.

"Are you sick?"

"A bit."

"Thor trying to help?"

This brought about a sort of irritated affection and the second prince let out a long breath through his nose as if to say _Bless him, he does try__, _though when Jane thought about those words exactly leaving the trickster's mouth, she laughed openly. "You're hiding from you brother. In my apartment. Darcy's right. My life is weird."

"Hmm," Loki offered with a shrug, neither confirming nor denying.

"Well, sorry to break it to you, but your brother's found your new favorite hiding spot, though I think he's been delayed by trick-or-treaters…" Her voice faded off as she turned, pulling her door open and peeking outside. She returned just a moment later laughing at something beyond it.

"Trick-or-treaters?" Loki echoed, unfolding his long legs from the couch and seeming interested.

"Yeah, I guess neither one of you have been here on Halloween, have you? Basically once a year kids dress up in costumes - their favorite superhero, their favorite movie character, you know, that sort of thing - and go around door-to-door and people give them candy."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would people freely give away candy to small children one night out of the year?"

"Because they're cute. Some of them think they're scary and it's the most adorable-" She stopped, noting the thoroughly puzzled look on the ill Asgardian's face and he sank deeper into the couch. "It's a tradition," she said at last.

"Ah."

"We'll find you a book on it."

"Thank you."

The door to the tiny apartment burst open about that and Thor - never bothering to opt for Midgardian clothing when coming to see Jane - looked half frightened by the swarms of children buzzing around him and tugging at his cape. One little boy that Jane recognized as a neighbor's son was wrapped fully around the thunderer's leg, holding onto his boot with the biggest grin and showing off his newly missing tooth. Blue eyes were pleading.

"Okay, guys, who wants candy?" Jane called and the hoard was instantly distracted with cries of "Me!" and "Trick or Treat!" and "I do!"

The astrophysicist shuffled liberal amounts of candy into each bag and plastic pumpkin she was offered and told them to have fun. They cheered and waved even as she closed the door. When she turned around, replacing the bag of candy she'd kept hidden away, Thor looked as closed to terrified as she'd ever seen him. "You okay?"

"I feared I might step on them," he managed.

"Fantastic. So tonight I have one sick god and another traumatised one. I'm a lucky girl."

This seemed to catch Thor's attention and he turned towards his little brother that offered him a hand, palm outward, to quiet him immediately. "Don't even think about beginning to fuss again."

"You should be at home in bed."

"And yet I am not. If you promise to stay and keep your lady friend company, I might choose to do so."

"Why then?"

Jane thought the younger prince might reach out and knock his elder brother upside the back of the head, but he seemed to refrain. "Because that will allow me the peace I need to rest. I'm _fine_, Thor."

"But you-"

"No."

"But-"

"I said no." The doorbell rang. "Oh look. More swarms of small children. They might start at you again, brother. Dear Jane, do protect him."

Thor did not look as amused as his two companions. Jane grinned broadly as she opened the door, offered candy, and agreed that the costumes of the two men who were in her apartment were very well done. "See? Didn't let one of them get you," she teased.

"You're both so very funny," Thor groused and sat down on the other end of the small couch.

Loki shot him a look that promised the most excruciating of ends if he started at it again, but said nothing as he sneezed and brought his long limbs up so that he was curled up on the couch once again, his back pressed firmly against the back cushion as if he refused to show any signs of weakness.

Jane shook her head as she began to rummage for clean dishes and the coffee pot. She and Thor chattered as she did so, interrupted every few minutes by happy children in costume. Finally, the scientist turned with one batch and motioned to the blond on her couch. "Come here. They won't bite," she promised and turned back to the kids. "You want to see the coolest costume ever?"

"Yeah!" they cheered and the oohs and ahs began as Thor inched forward, weary of having them wrap around his ankles again.

One little boy, dressed in a silver and black costume with a red cape and a hammer made of foam went wide-eyed at the sight of him. "It's really you," he managed. "Guys! Come see this!"

Jane laughed softly as Thor's face lit. The little boy was joined by several others dressed in various degrees of red, gold, white, blue, green, and black. An older sister, the obvious "adult" with them, was dressed like the Black Widow and stared just as much as the younger children. "Holy crap, you're really Thor!" she squeaked.

The god of thunder grinned broadly and, at Jane's encouragement, handed out candy to each of the kids.

"See? And you didn't trample one of them," she laughed as they returned to find Loki sleeping on the couch.

Thor's entire stance softened and he reached for a quilt draped across the back and tucked it around his brother's thin form.

"Does he get sick a lot?"

"Hmm?" the thunderer asked softly as he straightened. "He did when he was young, and sometimes now. Fevers are very dangerous for him."

"Makes sense, but…" Jane chewed on her lip, gauging Thor's reaction. When he looked to her, blue eyes open and honest, she stepped forward and took his hand. "I think he might feel a little smothered sometimes."

"Did he say so?"

Jane shrugged. "You know he wouldn't. Not until he was so worked up that you two are barking insults."

Thor nodded thoughtfully and squeezed her small hand in his. "I see, but… Well sometimes I think Loki doesn't see that people do care for him. I'd rather smother him a bit than ever have him forget that. I suppose I'm not very good at balance, am I?"

He moved to the couch and took his seat again. Jane watched them for a moment, Thor seeming content to simply watch over his brother. It was strange that one that always needed to be moving, to be doing something, could sit so still when it was truly needed, and as Loki shifted and leaned against his brother, the side of his face resting against the red cloak and his raspy breathing seemed to ease, if only in the slightest, Jane was sure that Thor truly did need to be there.

So she smiled a smile that said she understood and he returned it and offered her a place on his other side where she leaned up close to him, his arm around her shoulders. At some point they fell asleep like that with the retreating sounds of children returning home after a very good Halloween night.

* * *

END.


End file.
